Super Bowl economics: Missing the global mark

The National Football League is happy that Super Bowl viewership set an all-time record with 111 million U.S. viewers. Even more people watched a portion of the game. That sounds good, and from the narrow perspective of the United States of America, it is good.

Today, though, we live on a round planet that has nearly 7 billion people. Most of them don’t watch “football” as we Yankees call it. Most of them watch what we call soccer. And last year’s world cup had 700 million viewers, far surpassing the Super Bowl. That wasn’t too hot, possibly because it featured two moderate-size countries, the Netherlands (population 17 million)and Spain (43 million).

Back in 2002, the finals had about one billion viewers.

If your business is selling globally, it’s time to make a global perspective part of your daily life.